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Pilot seeking drone certificate

Asked by: 1919 views General Aviation, Private Pilot

Hello everyone,

I became a licensed pilot in November of 2016. Shortly afterwards, (Jan, 2017) I went to the FAAST site and took some courses along with completing the part 107 drone knowledge course. I received a document stating that I successfully completed the course, but never applied for the certificate itself. 

Im hoping the course Completion document is still valid.

My first BFR is coming up in November and would like to get the drone application done before we do the review, so it can be added to my pilot certification. Then I can operate a drone commercially if I so choose.

What are my next steps as far as the IACRA application etc? Do I just get ahold of my instructor and work with him on the application? Will I get another updated pilot certificate, or is the drone certificate separate?

Thanks, Brett

 

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5 Answers



  1. ayavner on Sep 07, 2018

    A FAAST rep came to our EAA chapter meeting to talk about this. Not sure about your circumstance, but he said that it is always better to get certificated separately as a drone pilot. The reason behind that is if you should have an accident (or do something dumb) with your drone, they can only come after your drone certificate. Without it, they can come after your pilot certificate. I would not want to lose that just because of something I did with a drone.

    i am not sure whether he was implying its even possible to “add” the drone rating to your current licence – I didn’t think it was. But in any case, best to keep the activities separate was the big takeaway from that talk.

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  2. ayavner on Sep 07, 2018

    afterthought – check out the airmen enquiry page for someone you know who is a pilot and a drone operator and you can see how it will show up. 2 separate cert numbers.

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  3. KDS on Sep 07, 2018

    What the FAASTeam Representative said doesn’t make any sense for a couple reasons.

    A Remote Pilot Certificate is an airman certificate. A mechanic certificate is an airman certificate. A flight attendant certificate is an airman certificate. Same for pilot, flight instructor, ground instructor, and air traffic controller. They are all airman certificates. They all have the same certificate number. Instructor certificates have suffixes on them, but the base number is the same and the FAA will pull them all up at the same time when they look for a certificate.

    Second, the FAA can and will “go after” whatever certificates it determines are applicable. An easy example is falsification. A person found guilty of that stands to have ALL airman certificates revoked.

    The inquiry that can done by the public will NOT include the pilot’s certificate number. For starters, the FAA unwisely used social security numbers for pilot certificate numbers for many years and a great many pilots have not requested a new number.

    One odd thing I just noted when I tried to pull up a coworker who holds a remote pilot certificate is that his name didn’t come up. Then I tried my name and it didn’t come up either. The only thing I can think of that would explain that is that we have both requested that our address not be published. So, I’m guessing that the FAA recently changed their search software so as not to present any data for those who have requested their address not be published.

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  4. KDS on Sep 08, 2018

    I’d like to put a little finer point on what I wrote before. There are airmen who have more than one airman certificate number. One case I can think of are pilots who obtain a U.S. certificate based upon a foreign license and also hold a U.S. certificate by passing the U.S. tests. The other case is someone who obtained a certificate under their social security number and then obtained a different certificate when social security numbers were no longer being used. Other than that, I cannot think of any instance where someone would have more than one certificate number other than by falsification.

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  5. Wheels Wings n Strings on Sep 08, 2018

    Thanks for the insight! Much appreciated. However, I am still wondering about the next steps needed to take to get the drone certificate.

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